Abstract

Hausmann, Pritchett, and Rodrik (2005) found that a political regime change increases the probability of an economic growth acceleration. When we tried to replicate their results we discovered that these authors were led astray by a data-description error in the Polity IV manual. When we correct for the error and stick to the Polity IV definition of regime change, we find that regime changes do not affect the likelihood that a growth acceleration occurs. We also find some evidence that economic liberalization increases the probability of a growth acceleration (sustained or otherwise).